Herman's resignation, effective Monday, allows the board to select new leadership at the Urbana-Champaign campus in the wake of an admissions scandal that upended the university's highest-ranking officials.The board's executive committee -- chairman Christopher Kennedy and members Edward McMillan and Pamela Strobel -- voted unanimously to approve Herman's new employment agreement. Herman next week will take a new role until the end of June, special assistant to the interim president, and will retain his $395,500-a-year salary.

He then will take a yearlong, paid sabbatical at his faculty salary of $244,000. In July 2011, he will be expected to start teaching two classes a year at the Urbana-Champaign or Chicago campuses, and work on a program he began to improve the number and quality of teachers going into science, technology, engineering and math.

He will forgo a $300,000 retention bonus that would have been due in June. His tenure on the faculty is indefinite under the agreement.

Trustee Karen Hasara said she asked soon-to-be interim president Stanley Ikenberry what Herman would be doing until June. She said, "He assured me he would not be in a position where he would be influencing in areas he shouldn't be influencing."

Kennedy said: "I believe the chancellor will be acting in the best interests of the university and keep himself out of areas that are no longer his responsibility.